Besides sharing some common characteristics with conventional journalism, online journalism has its unique features as well. Some of the major features are:

1. Immediacy: Publishing of news online is always immediate as events occur. It does not require the same time necessary in the conventional media.
2. Interactivity: Readers of online news outlets have the opportunity to interact by means of commenting, reacting, sharing the contents and so on.
3. Hypertextuality: News and relevant contents can be added with more information by using hyperlinks. By using hyperlinks, journalists can add other avenues or apply different contexts to their contents like news stories and features.
4. Multimediality: Contents published online can be accompanied by different types of contents e.g. images, audio-video contents, graphics and other types of visual elements. Thus, online journalism is essentially an exhibition of contents originating from different medium.
5. End of time constraint: Online contents are always available. Readers can access and use these contents whenever they want to.
6. Real-time journalism: Publishing news in real-time is possible through online platforms. That means, news can be provided to the online readers as they happen.

These are some significant characteristics that distinguish online journalism from the conventional journalism i.e. print and broadcast media. But, being immediate, real-time, and interactive are the features that make the real difference.